uld no longer overawe. Not only was the Parliament packed
with nominees of the Crown but new constituencies were created whose
members would follow implicitly its will. For this purpose twenty-two
new boroughs were created under Edward, fourteen under Mary; some,
indeed, places entitled to representation by their wealth and
population, but the bulk of them small towns or hamlets which lay wholly
at the disposal of the Royal Council.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth and the Houses.]

Elizabeth adopted the system of her two predecessors both in the
creation of boroughs and the recommendation of candidates; but her keen
political instinct soon perceived the inutility of both expedients. She
saw that the "management" of the Houses, so easy under Cromwell, was
becoming harder every day. The very number of the members she called up
into the Commons from nomination boroughs, sixty-two in all, showed the
increasing difficulty which the government found in securing a working
majority. The rise of a new nobility enriched by the spoils of the
Church and trained to political life by the stress of events around them
was giving fresh vigour to the House of Lords. The increased wealth of
the country gentry as well as the growing desire to obtain a seat among
the Commons brought about the cessation at this time of the old payment
of members by their constituencies. A change too in the borough
representation, which had long been in progress but was now for the
first time legally recognized, tended greatly to increase the vigour and
independence of the Lower House. By the terms of the older writs borough
members were required to be chosen from the body of the burgesses; and
an act of Henry the Fifth gave this custom the force of law. But the
passing of such an act shows that the custom was already widely
infringed, and by Elizabeth's day act and custom alike had ceased to
have force. Most seats were now filled by representatives who were
strange to the borough itself, and who were often nominees of the great
landowners round. But they were commonly men of wealth and blood whose
aim in entering Parliament was a purely political one, and whose
attitude towards the Crown was far bolder and more independent than that
of the quiet tradesmen who preceded them. Elizabeth saw that
"management" was of little avail with a house of members such as these;
and she fell back as far as she could on Wolsey's policy of practical
abolition. She summoned Parliaments